No. The two things are quite unrelated. Some constants like e and pi are irrational, but not all of them by any means.

Actually that said, I can't actually think of any mathematical constants that are rational, but I'm sure there are some. I know of some physical ones however...

Edit again, i is rational. That said, there is no absolute definition of what is and what isn't a constant, it's more a general term used to describe some numbers and not others. I'm sure an argument could be made that googol/googolplex are constants of sorts and they are both rational.

Last edited by PhoenixFire; 07-09-2010 at 01:17 PM.

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

1) Had double pneumonia as a kid, as did my twin sis. Doctors told my parents to pray that we lived through the night. Dad said **** off, I'm an atheist, you ****s better save my kids, etc. Then prayed anyway.

No. The two things are quite unrelated. Some constants like e and pi are irrational, but not all of them by any means.

Actually that said, I can't actually think of any mathematical constants that are rational, but I'm sure there are some. I know of some physical ones however...

Edit again, i is rational. That said, there is no absolute definition of what is and what isn't a constant, it's more a general term used to describe some numbers and not others. I'm sure an argument could be made that googol/googolplex are constants of sorts and they are both rational.

Am I missing something? i \neq n/m, for any n,m integer, assuming you mean i \equiv \sqrt(-1).

The units go along with the physical constant - so changing units doesn't change the constant.

it changes the value of the constant... and the value is the only thing that matters, isn't it?

Again, with the exception of alpha and its friends (i forget what they all are) which are dimensionless, so are completely independent of your units. alpha is always 1/137-point-something regardless if you're in SI, Gaussian, Planck, whatever.

it changes the value of the constant... and the value is the only thing that matters, isn't it?

Again, with the exception of alpha and its friends (i forget what they all are) which are dimensionless, so are completely independent of your units. alpha is always 1/137-point-something regardless if you're in SI, Gaussian, Planck, whatever.

Well, no. It's the underlying physical phenomena that matters. The speed of light is the speed of light, regardless of whether you use km or miles...

The inherent quantity doesn't change, just the number you use to express it.

yeah but we're talking about the constants themselves here, not what they mean. so to talk about the physical constants as if they have some intractable fixed value is wrong. i mean, for any of those constants c, e, h, G, whatever, i could pick a units system such that it's 1 and dimensionless, which kind of "eliminates" the constant.

it's just a thing we chuck in our equations to make sure they work. but they all have to be consistent with the dimensionless constants, that's the central rule.

yeah but we're talking about the constants themselves here, not what they mean. so to talk about the physical constants as if they have some intractable fixed value is wrong. i mean, for any of those constants c, e, h, G, whatever, i could pick a units system such that it's 1 and dimensionless, which kind of "eliminates" the constant.

it's just a thing we chuck in our equations to make sure they work. but they all have to be consistent with the dimensionless constants, that's the central rule.

I think we're arguing semantics here. When CDM asked and I said physical constant, I was referring to the 'meaning', rather than a specific number. Obviously (many) constants are things that we just need to fudge our equations with to make them work, and then assign probably 'meanings' to them later on, but in other cases, it is still a fundamental quantity that means something. G might be 'chucked in', but c has a much more concrete meaning.